SCMS Panel Proposal: The Complexities and Complications of Representing
Blackness

A colleague and I are looking to put together a panel for SCMS.  What is
representational blackness in media?  Is it represented by blackness
situated in a media text like NBC's failed show Undercovers or is it located
in a text like Everybody Hates Chris or is it someplace else?  Race scholars
are becoming increasingly more aware of the complexity in which race becomes
represented, appropriated, mitigated, and utilized in media, particularly
within the context of a postracial rhetoric.  Whether it is globalization or
the increasing awareness of racial mixture, it can no longer be assumed that
audiences continue to subscribe to a "one-drop" rule based construction of
blackness.  Furthermore, intersectionality and the implications of identity
politics further complicate readings of blackness.  Factors such as gender
and sexuality influence a reading of blackness in a significant way.
Therefore as scholars of race, looking at blackness as singular or essential
is not only closed-minded, limited, and exclusionary, but it is just plain
incorrect.  Such an approach does not account for the complexity of
negotiation involved in an audience's racialized reading.  As a response to
this, this panel seeks to interrogate the complications and complexities of
blackness in several media contexts. Some examples of topics can include: 

*	The intersectionality of race, gender and sexuality in media texts
*	Case studies of particular texts and their relation to black
representational strategies 
*	Notions of in/visibility of class, gender and sexuality in
representations of blackness
*	Complicating notions of "authentic" blackness in media 

 

Please send a 250-500-word abstract along with five references and a brief
bio to Keara Goin ([log in to unmask]) and Alfred Martin
([log in to unmask]) no later than August 15, 2011.  Selected panelists
will be notified by August 20, 2011.   

 

Keara Goin and Alfred Martin

PhD Students, The University of Texas at Austin

[log in to unmask] 

 

 

________________

Alfred L. Martin, Jr.

PhD Student

The University of Texas at Austin

Department of Radio, Television and Film

Co-Managing Editor, Flow Media Journal  <http://www.flowtv.org/> FlowTV.org

[log in to unmask] 

 


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